Major Needs -- Never Met Randy Milligan Had To Leave New York To Get To Big Time.

April 1, 1989|By CRAIG DAVIS, Staff Writer

MIAMI -- The firm resonance of bat colliding head-on with ball jerked the crowd to attention at the exhibition opener earlier this month at Bobby Maduro Stadium.

The ball rose like a well-stroked 3-iron shot. The blue monster, Fenwayesque extension of the center-field fence, couldn`t reach it. Up, up and out, it soared. A parking lot shot all the way.

Goodbye. And Hello!

A sweet start to a new beginning for Randy Milligan -- square on the sweet spot. To his new teammates with the Baltimore Orioles, it carried a more memorable first impression than a strong handshake. To the visiting Mets, it said, remember me?

``A homer like that makes people remember,`` Orioles manager Frank Robinson said. ``He hit it so high and far. You don`t forget that one too soon.``

The Mets haven`t forgotten Milligan. They remember his monster summer of `87 at Tidewater, their top farm club: .326, 29 home runs, 103 RBI. He missed the Triple Crown of the Triple-A International League by two homers.

Those are numbers to reckon with anywhere. The problem was there was no place for him in New York. Not then. Not now.

Even after seven seasons in the Mets` system and recognition by The Sporting News as Minor League Player of the Year, Milligan found himself face to face with a sheer precipice that he couldn`t scale with a pick and climbing boots. The same impassive visage loomed above like a bust on Mount Rushmore.

Keith Hernandez was still firmly chiseled into the Mets` lineup at first base. And his shadow, Dave Magadan, presented another impediment just below. So Milligan fixed on a wishful mantra: Trade, trade, trade. . .

``I was always counting Keith`s contract years,`` he says. ``The first time he signed he had, I think, a three-year deal, and the next time he had a five- year deal. I never saw myself being the first baseman for the Mets. I really never saw myself in the big leagues, because I didn`t see them trading me.``

Stockpiling young talent is a luxury of an elite few major league organizations. It is the Mets` nest-egg for continued prosperity. A farm land rich in the nutrients of success. But it is an oppressive blanket for unfortunate ready-for-prime-time players.

There may be no more farm-ripened prodigy in the minor leagues than Dave West, the left-hander who led Triple-A pitchers with a 1.80 ERA while going 12-4 last season. But even after an impressive spring, he was handed a return- ticket to Tidewater. He has plenty of company in fellow dead-end kids such as infielders Keith Miller and Craig Shipley, outfielders Darren Reed and Mark Carreon, catcher Phil Lombardi and pitcher Jack Savage.

Milligan, gratefully liberated by a trade to Pittsburgh last spring, sounds like a freedom fighter speaking of brothers stuck in bondage when he reflects on former teammates mired in the Mets` well of sparkling youth.

``Dave West. The man is ready for the big leagues. There`s no question about it, he should be in the big leagues with the Mets. But they`ve got so many pitchers that he can`t get his opportunity,`` he says.

Milligan nearly had to go to Japan for his. He would have if he could have before last season. The Mets said he`d be back in Triple-A. A Japanese team was dangling a fortune for his services in the Orient: something like $2 million for three years.

``I`d been playing for chicken feed for seven years and these guys were offering numbers I had never seen before. I was definitely looking forward to eating sushi and drinking plum wine,`` he says.

The catch was the Mets wanted $1 million for his contract. Curses, stymied again.

That`s baseball for you, a game of outrageous fortune -- good or bad. Unfathomable rewards to some, unbearable frustrations to others. No apologies given or received. Business, after all, is business.

``At that point I hit rock bottom. I felt like the game was letting me down -- the one thing in my life that had never let me down (before),`` Milligan says. ``I couldn`t see myself going back to Triple-A after the year I`d had. What did I have to prove?``

No alternatives. No escape in sight. And then out of nowhere, news heaven- sent.